A six year-old child with two gunshot wounds was said to have been transported by helicopter to a hospital, while a second child was reportedly shot in the leg, according to the Redding Record Searchlight.

All other students had been evacuated from the school, authorities said.

This latest incident comes after a series of deadly attacks in the US, which is putting pressure on the government to rethink its gun laws – although President Donald Trump’s unwavering support for the Second Amendment is evident in his response to the merciless mass shooting in Texas earlier this month.

26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley, who opened fire and killed at least 27 people at a church in Texas during a Sunday service, was described as ‘creepy’, ‘crazy’ and ‘weird’.

In a press conference in Tokyo, the US president maintained the mass shooting is ‘not a guns situation’, reports the Independent.

26 people were killed in their place of worship, when a gunman committed the deadliest shooting in Texas history. Today, we remember them ? pic.twitter.com/L4XuqgGQlA

Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and families of today’s horrible and murderous attack. This act of evil occurred as the victims and their families were in their sacred place of worship.

We have a lot of mental health problems in our country, as do other countries. But this isn’t a guns situation.

Fortunately somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction. This is a mental health problem at the highest level. It’s a very, very sad event.

The two men who took on the shooter are local plumber, 55-year-old Stephen Willeford and Johnnie Langendorff.

Willeford, a neighbour of the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs and a keen biker, ‘grabbed his rifle and engaged the suspect’.

Stephen Willeford / Johnnie Langendorff / Facebook

Willeford, who has no military experience, was described by a local as ‘an excellent shot’ and when he came face to face with Kelley, shot in between his body armor without hesitation.

Police confirmed at least 27 people were killed, including the shooter.

This year saw the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, when on 1 October, Stephen Paddock shot at a crowd of 22,000 people attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada.

58 people were killed and 546 were injured.

PA

Paddock opened fire between 10:05pm and 10:15pm, firing hundreds of rifle rounds from his suite on the 32nd floor of the nearby Mandalay Bay hotel.

Around one hour after Paddock fired his last shot, he was found dead in his room from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His motive remains unknown.